There was a community of Jews in the place, and it was from this that his unofficial visitors were drawn--scared, furtive men, distinguished from the true believers by their dress, who skulked along back-lanes, and entered the house by a private door in terror of their lives, but emboldened to the enterprise by the hope of turning a more or less honest penny. They were anxious to be Ferrers’ agents in communicating secretly with personages whom he could not directly approach, and, in general, to do any dirty work that might be requisite. One of them, more courageous than the rest, actually offered to disguise Ferrers and take him about the city, but he felt compelled to refuse the offer, much against his will. The man was only too probably a spy, and what could be easier than to lead the stranger, ignorant of his whereabouts, into the precincts of one of the mosques, and raise the cry of “Kafir!” after which the Indian Government would have to lament the loss of another envoy who had mysteriously disappeared. It was very likely that the missing Whybrow had been trapped in some such way, but Ferrers was beginning to doubt whether exact information as to his fate would ever be obtained. The one indisputable fact was that he had disappeared, and not he alone, but his servants, horses, arms, and equipment, as completely as if they had never existed. The last of his written reports which had reached Calcutta was dated half a day’s march from the city, and in it he said that in view of his projected entry thither he thought it well to send off beforehand the results of his explorations up to this point. From inquiries made on the spot, Ferrers was certain that he had left this camping-ground and gone towards the city, but there his information stopped. No one could or would testify to the lost man’s having passed the gates, though rumour was rife on the subject of his doings and his fate. Ferrers’ emissaries brought him a different report every day. Whybrow had been turned back at the gates and had returned to India; he had been arrested on entering; he had been honourably received by the Khan and provided with a house and escort; he had performed his business and gone away in peace; he had been arrested during an audience at the palace and straightway beheaded; he had been torn to pieces in the streets; he had turned Mohammedan and been admitted to the Khan’s bodyguard; a mutilated body alleged to be his had been subjected to disgusting indignities at the place of execution,--all these mutually contradictory reports were submitted, apparently in perfect good faith, by the very same men, but they shed no certain light on the fact of Whybrow’s disappearance.